


It Should Mean Laughter, Not Poison

by Not_Crazy_Just_a_Fangirl



Series: Companion Stories - Luthors and Kryptonians [5]
Category: Smallville, Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Clark Kent and Lex Luthor Reconciliation, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, History Repeats, M/M, Pre-Slash, They both need a Hug, heart to heart, if you want to read it that way - Freeform, its a long road ahead, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 07:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11686671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_Crazy_Just_a_Fangirl/pseuds/Not_Crazy_Just_a_Fangirl
Summary: It's often forgotten, but Lex Luthor and Clark Kent were once best friends.Or,The boys fear history repeating when it comes to Lena and Kara.





	It Should Mean Laughter, Not Poison

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Richard Siken poem "Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out"
> 
> Here is the quote from the poem:  
>  "I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have   
>  these luxuries.   
> I have told you where I’m coming from, so put it together.   
>  We clutch our bellies and roll on the floor . . .   
>  When I say this, it should mean laughter,   
> not poison.   
>  I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes.   
> Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.   
>  Quit milling around the yard and come inside."
> 
>  
> 
> As I've said before, Siken's poetry works well in terms of Lex and Clark's relationship.

Lex Luthor and Clark Kent meet in Smallville.

Clark Kent saves Lex Luthor's life. This is the beginning of an epic friendship. The beginning of an epic rivalry. 

A baby named Kal-El crashes in Smallville, and the girl meant to follow him comes nearly 20 years too late. But thats another story.

But it all leads up to the same.

Lex and Clark have a  **history**. One that does not bear repeating.

Except, that same girl, who came later than she should have, is a girl named Kara Zor-El, and she is Clark's cousin.

And she apparently, sees fit to befriend Lex Luthor's half-sister Lena.

Virtually everyone agrees this is a terrible idea.

* * *

 

This is what Kara Danvers knows about the Luthors.

That Lex was once her cousin's best friend. That he was half in love with him, or so it seems from her perspective. That if the Lana Lang/Lois Lane this is anything more than a coincidence, maybe Clark was half in love too.

That Lex Luthor is mad, but not nearly as insane as he'd like people, namely Clark, to believe he is.

That Lena may love her brother, but she is nothing like him.

And that, considering the Luthor parents, Lex and Lena came out better than could ever be expected it seems.

* * *

 

This is what Lena Luthor knows about Kryptonians.

That her brother has a history with Superman, and hates the ideal the man portrays more than he ever could the man (alien?).

That her brother always had the best of good intentions, but you know what they say about the road to hell.

That Superman, and Supergirl at that, must lead very human lives outside of the cape.

Lena Luthor is no idiot, and she can read her brother like a book. Those glasses may fool the rest of the world, but they won't fool her.

Its the same obvious secret that drove her brother half mad. She thinks Kara might just have a good reason.

She doesn't really know what to do with that though. So she just lets it be. She may be a Luthor - but she's seen the madness which lies down that path. And Lena knows how to play Happy Family better than most.

* * *

 

The first time Clark visits Lex after Kara's debut as Supergirl, he looks almost sheepish.

Lex just gives him look, because the "aw shucks" thing hasn't worked for him  **in years**.

But they continue as they always do in these meetings, ignoring the elephant in the room that is Superman, and in this case, the new elephant that is Supergirl, and her accidental destruction in National City. Lex fights the urge to say "this is exactly what I was afraid of", because that would mean acknowledging all the issues they've keep buried and unsaid for years. They have reached a tenuous balance. They are friends again, for the time being. Or, at least, some semblance of friendship. They are both too scared to break it. 

* * *

 

This is what makes them acknowledge it.

Lena and Kara become ** _friends_**. 

And they have enough history between them to know this ends badly.

* * *

 

Kara goes to Clark before Lena goes to Lex, mainly, because Kara can fly and Lena has to go through security.

Clark tells Kara she's playing with fire, and that no Luthor can be trusted. Kara says Lena is different (and where has Clark heard that before, coming out of his own mouth to his father, substitute Lena with Lex, and when Kara leaves in an angry huff, he has to sit down before the world crashes around him).

Lena comes with tales of two new friends - though Lex knows they are one and the same. (Lex wonders if he can break the cycle of history repeating by just telling her the secret himself. But that might just make things worse, and he wouldn't know how to explain things anyway). Lena says she's got a new friend in Kara Danvers, a reporter who, for a first, doesn't immediately abhor the Luthor name. And in Supergirl, who saved her life. What ever his feud with Superman, she says, Supergirl isn't a part of it. When she leaves, Lex thinks about the 13 year old girl who came crying to him, before he was ever in this cell, because Clark left her with the Danvers and supposedly didn't want her, and thinks, she's more a part if it than you'd think. Then again, Kara had always been the optimist, the one that told Lois to go on and make Clark and him find a semblance of reconciliation. Lena has never seen him as evil, but neither had Kara Zor-El. 

* * *

 

The next time Clark visits, Supergirl has been protecting National City for nearly a year. Kara has been on Earth for nearly a decade. They are ten years, and a universe it seems, away from Smallville. And neither one of them wants to be the one that breaks the silence first.

They can't go back from here.

Clark speaks first, he's always been one to leap before he looks. But he doesn't look him in the eyes.

"Kara has a new friend" he says. And has the gall to look distraught at the prospect. Hurt rises in Lex's chest, it feels like anger, Clark isn't the victim here, Kara isn't the one that'll get hurt when this goes badly. All at once, Lex feels like throwing something terrible in Clark's face, just to see him hurt too, like the knowledge that, all those years ago, when he left Kara to what-were-then strangers, she went running to Lex himself. He wonders if Clark knows, he's always had a talent for obliviousness after all.

Lex says nothing. Trading hurt hasn't done anything but get them exactly where they are sitting after all. Backs against opposite walls, a wall of even-Superman-proof glass between them. Lex still wears Lana's locket, it feel less like a victory than it once did.

Clark stares him down, almost begging him to say something. Between them, Lex has always been better with words anyway.

"Lena has two new friends" Lex says finally. Clark's lips twitch, almost like he wants to smile, because Lex is joking, even if it is a deflection, and they haven't done that in a long time. Lex remembers laying in the hay in the loft, a million miles and years away, before Lex took over the company and Clark became Superman and everything went to hell, when their friendship was more natural and less pretending. 

But they've already started, might as well plow through.

"Do you think Kara will tell her?" - No need for Lex to clarify what there is to tell, Clark knows exactly what he means. Clark suddenly becomes very interested in the ground.

"Kara's smarter than I am" Clark says finally. Its not really an answer, but its as good of one either of them can give.

Kara is smarter than Clark, and has the experience of knowing all of his mistakes in full, technicolor detail. And Lena is calmer, steadier, less intense with the need to prove her worth, more sure of herself and her place than Lex ever could be. She doesn't define herself by Kara or Supergirl's regard the way Lex did with Clark's. 

Maybe, it'll be okay.

Or maybe, the result of everything building up and up will be igniting, and the fallout will be worse than anything Clark and Lex could ever do. They don't have the same history holding them back.

But for all their combined genius and superpowers, neither Clark nor Lex can tell the future. And they don't have an answer.

So really, all there is to do, is wait and see what happens next.

 

 


End file.
